VIII: Weather - You Like It Or Not
Scootaloo watched Zephyr Breeze as he carefully dissected each layer of the sandwich Mrs. Shy had placed in front of him. "Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hmm." He sighed. "Well, looks alright. Not your best, gotta say. Remember when you used to put those little crispy red onion rings on your sandwiches, Moms? That was always my favorite."
Mrs. Shy grimaced. "W-well, dear, I...I'm afraid I just don't have any red onions right now. I actually haven't even gone shopping for the week yet, we're running low on everything."
Zephyr Breeze sighed. "Well, you tried. Course, with a freeloader in the house, I guess things run out faster, huh?" He glanced at Scootaloo.
Scootaloo stared at him. "You...you seriously just..."
"SO!" Mrs. Shy said as loudly as she could, clapping her hooves together. "This is nice. This is nice. Three of us, having lunch together. Just like old times, isn't it?"
"I guess," Zephyr Breeze said. He took a bite of his sandwich, then glanced at Scootaloo. "So what is your story? It's not like Moms and Pops to just take in some half-pint off the street. I mean, this old house only has so much room, you know?"
"It seems to have plenty of room to me," Scootaloo said. "Especially since I'm staying in Fluttershy's old room."
"Yes, it's not as though Fluttershy's using it anymore," Mrs. Shy said. "Since she has her own house and her own life."
"And doesn't come home to keep you and Pops company near as much as your favorite son," Zephyr Breeze said. "Oh, don't get me wrong, Flutter-Butter's great and all, but she thinks she's too good for us sky ponies, am I right?" He chuckled. "You know I'm right."
Mrs. Shy frowned mildly. "Now, Zephyr dear—"
Scootaloo slammed her hooves on the table. "Fluttershy doesn't think she's too good for anypony!" she challenged hotly. "Fluttershy's the sweetest, kindest, most caring pony I know! And she's a hero!"
Zephyr raised an eyebrow. "Well," he said. "That's one filly's opinion, I guess. That's cool. That's cool." He leaned forward. "You, uhh...wouldn't happen to be my big sis' baby love child, would you?"
Scootaloo spluttered. "WHAT?!"
"Hey now! I'm not sayin' there's nothin' wrong with that!" Zephyr protested, holding his hooves up placatingly. "Just that Fluttershy stays on the ground so much, who knows what she gets up to that we never hear about up here, y'dig?"
Mrs. Shy's brow creased. "Now, Zephyr, I'm certain if I were a grandmare, I would know about it by now."
Scootaloo clenched her teeth. "My mom and dad," she ground out, "are a Ponyville weather pony and a delivery pony. They barely even know Fluttershy. I know her because my friends and I spent the night at her cottage one time and because everypony in Ponyville knows Fluttershy and loves Fluttershy."
Zephyr tilted his head. "Ponyville, huh? You're from that one-horse farm town? Well that figures."
"So's your sister," Scootaloo pointed out.
"Yeah yeah," Zephyr replied dismissively. "So you're here because...what, you finally got tired of all that boring ground life and wanted to see how real pegasi live?"
"Scootaloo is here to get in touch with her pegasus magic," Mrs. Shy said. She glanced at Scootaloo with a wrinkled muzzle and a question in her eyes.
Scootaloo sighed. "I can't fly," she said bluntly, reflexively bracing herself. "So my pegasus magic is shot. Princess Twilight brought me to Cloudsdale and arranged for me to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Shy for a few weeks so I can get a feel for my own magic."
"Can't fly, huh," Zephyr mused. "No wonder you live in Ponyville." He shook his head. "So anyway, Moms, my room's just like I left it, yeah?" He grinned. "Got a feelin' I might be stayin' for a while..."
* * * * *
Over the next two days, Scootaloo helped Mrs. Shy with the housework while Zephyr Breeze lazed around the house, doing his best impression of a sack of potatoes when he wasn't busy taunting and insulting Scootaloo. For her part, she did her best not to let him rile her up, though there were a few close shaves and more than a few heated exchanges of words.
Then on the third day, Zephyr's attitude toward Scootaloo changed abruptly when Rainbow Dash dropped by to check on her.
"How's it goin', squirt?" Rainbow asked cheerfully as she descended over the garden, where Scootaloo was busy reshaping clouds and watering flowers.
"Great! At least, the part I came here for is," Scootaloo said. "Well...mostly great. I've kinda been having a few...problems."
Rainbow tilted her head. "Problems? It's not your wings, is it? Are your wings messing up your—"
"No, it isn't that," Scootaloo said. "I'm really getting the hang of my cloud magic and stuff. It's just..." She frowned at the house. "Sometimes I have trouble concentrating because a certain lazy jerk won't stop messing with me."
Rainbow blinked. "Lazy jerk? Wha—" Her irises contracted to pinpricks. "Oooooh no. Don't tell me Zephyr Breeze is here."
"Yup," Scootaloo said flatly. She tilted her head. "You know him?"
"Hey hey, is that Rainbows I hear out there?"
Rainbow Dash dragged a hoof down her face.
Zephyr Breeze sauntered out into the garden, carelessly trampling a bed of posies Scootaloo had just watered, and gave Rainbow a big, cheesy grin. "What it is, Rainbows? Bet you heard I was back in town and rushed right over to see me!"
"Yeah, right, like I'm gonna fly toward a massive hemmorhoid," Rainbow muttered under her breath. Out loud, she said, "Actually, I came to check up on Scootaloo and see if she's almost ready to start spending her days at the weather factory."
"I am ABSOLUTELY ready for that!" Scootaloo declared emphatically.
Rainbow mussed her mane. "That's the spirit, Scoots! Just what I expect from my number one fan."
Zephyr blinked. "Wait. You two know each other?"
"Oh, did I forget to mention?" Scootaloo said with a smirk. "Rainbow Dash is kind of like my adopted big sister. She takes me under her wing, teaches me stuff, lets me hang out with her while she's being awesome..."
Rainbow laughed. "Yeah, we're pretty close," she said.
"Really," Zephyr drawled, stroking his muzzle with a hoof.
"Well, I'll make the arrangements for you to come in starting tomorrow," Rainbow said. "You can just come with Mr. Shy when he leaves for work." She waved with a wing. "Later!"
Scootaloo watched her fly off, then went back to work. Zephyr fell in beside her, shaping stray bits of cloud. "So, you're in tight with Rainbows, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Cool. That's cool. You know, maybe you're not so bad after all. Here, let me help you with that..."
"No thanks, I've got it."
"No, really, I insist. Uhh...by the way, you know Rainbows is totally into me, right? Oh yeah. When we were little, she was always tryin' to impress ol' Breeze..."
"Riiiiiight..."
* * * * *
Scootaloo looked around the weather factory in awe as Mr. Shy helped her into a white slicker and a hardhat. "Wow," she said. "I mean, yeah, I saw this place the other day with the others, but I guess I didn't really...wow!"
Mr. Shy chuckled and smiled. "Yeah, this old factory is pretty amazing," he said. "I've worked here my whole life. Though right now I'm flying a desk," he added with a sigh. "I used to work in the cloud room. Now I just process reports..." He shook his head. "But enough about that. Let me show you something every little pegasus loves!"
The two ponies made their way through the factory; busy pegasi waved at them and greeted them as they passed through various large chambers and long corridors. Eventually they entered a cavernous chamber taken up by tiers of basins supported on cloud columns, with a river of rainbow flowing from the higher tiers to the lower tiers. At each basin, pegasi with long wooden spoons were busily stirring the flowing rainbow.
"Wow," Scootaloo breathed, her wings flaring out. She tilted her head. "What are they doing, anyway?"
"It's complicated," Mr. Shy said. "To be honest, even those of us who've worked here our entire lives don't entirely understand it." He chuckled. "What I can tell you is the spectrum skimmers are mixing in special stabilizing agents that thicken and separate the colors of the rainbow."
Scootaloo tilted her head. "But...it's all mixed together in the little pools," she said.
"Yeah, but it thickens and separates in the outflow traps," Mr. Shy said. He pointed at the higher basins. "See how the rainbow's thinner and clearer up there, and how down here closer to the floor, it's thick and vibrant?"
"Yeah," Scootaloo nodded. She frowned, looking around. "And some of what's coming out at the top is going into the bottom without anypony mixing it."
"That's right," Mr. Shy said with a smile. "You see, there's several grades of rainbow we export all over Equestria. What you see coming straight down from the top is misty rainbow. That goes over waterfalls and into rain clouds. What you see down below is permanent rainbow. We use it in pegasus architecture and decoration."
"Like the fence around your house?"
"Exactly."
A pegasus skimming one of the lower basins suddenly lost his balance and toppled into the rainbow with a loud splash, spraying huge globs of color everywhere. The other skimmers stopped stirring to watch as he erupted from the basin screaming his head off, his face rapidly changing colors as he belched a plume of prismatic flames into the air.
Scootaloo stared, wide-eyed. "What the—"
All the pegasi laughed as the afflicted pony's color-changing and screaming subsided. He looked around with a sheepish grin, scratching the back of his head. Mr. Shy chuckled. "As far as weather factory accidents go, Rainbow Room accidents are always funny." He trotted toward the exit. "Come on, I'll show you where I used to work next."
As Scootaloo followed him, she kept glancing back over her shoulder. "What...what just happened?!"
Mr. Shy smiled. "There isn't a hot sauce in Equestria that's as spicy as rainbows," he said. "Actually, there's an annual rainbow guzzling competition at the Cloudsdale Fair."
"Really?" Scootaloo asked. "How come I've never seen it in like, stores and stuff?"
"Because it tastes terrible," Mr. Shy said. "Anyway, here's the cloud...condenser...room..." He trailed off, his face paling. "What in Equestria?"
Scootaloo followed his gaze and gasped.
Dozens of tiny black thunderclouds were zipping around in the large room they'd just entered. Machinery was smoking and puffing and wheezing as the clouds let loose with painful zaps of lightning, scattering pegasi who were attempting to corral the chaos.
A burly stallion landed by the door. "'S not safe here," he grunted.
"What happened?" Mr. Shy asked.
"Control wheel blew," the stallion said. "It ain't worked right since Rainbow Dash trashed the factory. We're still waitin' on a replacement from Unicornassus."
Mr. Shy frowned. "But that happened months ago! What's taking them so long?"
The stallion shrugged. "Couldn't say. Control wheels are hard to make, y'know? I mean, we only change it out every twenty years or so. Anyway, best steer clear for now."
"Y-yeah," Mr. Shy said. "Come on, Scootaloo. Let's go see the snowflake room."
"Snowflake room's off-limits," the stallion grunted. "Bout all that's open right now for visitors is the Rainbow Room and the Rain Vault."
"Well that's a shame," Mr. Shy said. "I guess we'll go to the Rain Vault then." He led Scootaloo down a series of twisting corridors into a large room with dozens of shelves lining the walls from the floor all the way to the high ceiling. Scootaloo trotted closer to a shelf to examine a row of clear boxes full of grey clouds. Each box had a little yellow tag on it; the tags listed a town where the rain was to be delivered, the type of rain contained in the box, and the delivery date.
"So you make the rain, then you store it in boxes with little yellow tags on every one?" Scootaloo asked.
"That's right," Mr. Shy said. "At any given time, we keep four months' worth of rain for eastern Equestria right here in this vault."
"What about western Equestria?" Scootaloo asked.
"Oh, their weather is made in Seaddle," Mr. Shy said. He let out a sigh. "I've always wanted to see Seaddle's weather factory. You know they make twice as much rain as we make here in Cloudsdale?"
"Huh. Cool."
"Well, I guess that's all the interesting stuff we can see today," Mr. Shy said. "I think we'll come back tomorrow and see if we can't find a little job for you. Maybe you can learn how to skim rainbows! Or maybe we can get you into a breeze flapping class for fillies and colts. After all, breeze magic is really important."
"Wow, it seems like there's so much for me to learn," Scootaloo said. "I've already learned so much, and now there's all this other stuff I didn't even know pegasi did..."
Mr. Shy ruffled her mane affectionately. "By the time you're ready to go back to Ponyville, you'll know everything you need to know, and maybe you'll really understand what it means to be a pegasus."
"I hope so," Scootaloo said, frowning. "It's just..." She examined her wings. "How can I ever really be in touch with my pegasus magic if I can't do the one most important thing every pegasus does?"
Mr. Shy's face fell. "Hmm. Well." He sighed. "Tell you what. Once you've gotten a better grasp of what it is we do here in Cloudsdale, you can spend some time talking to Fluttershy? She's certainly just as much a pegasus as anypony here, but she spends most of her life with her hooves on the ground. If anypony can teach you how to be a real pegasus without flying all the time, it's her."
Scootaloo brightened. "Hey, you're right!" She pumped a hoof. "Alright! I'll learn everything I can here, and then when I'm ready, I'll go see Fluttershy!"
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Fluttershy is a logical choice for instructing Scootaloo, I must agree.
The mental image I got from this is awesome and hilarious. Seriously, one of the best parts of fantastical environments are the fun little ways to do relatively normal things. You accomplished this in one sentence, so kudos to you on that one.
Looks like Scootaloo is slowly making progress.
Yep, that went about the way I thought it would.
Is there any plans to allow Scootaloo fly, or at least at her age's average capability??? Maybe as a result of using Trinity magic?? Keep up the wonderful job!!!
7945301 And now I'm imagining him sitting on his desk like Snoopy... Can we get Zephyr as the Red Baron in on this image?
Anytime Zephyr spoke in this chapter I wanted to beat some sense into his skull, but unfortunately I think nothing is there to apply the lesson to.
I like Mr. Shy. He's a nice person.
His son can jump off a cliff. With his wings tied.
Nice Matchbox reference
Wherein Scootaloo visits the rainbow factory.
What?
In any case, very nice stuff in this chapter. Also Zephyr Breeze. I'm not sure if he'll be more or less obnoxious now that he sees Scootaloo as an inroads to Dash. Still, at least we get to see Mr. Shy do something beyond getting verbally trampled by his son.
Awesome chapter. So Zephyr is probably gonna keep hassling Scootaloo, albeit in a different fashion, to try to get into Rainbow's
pantswhatevers. Hang in there Scoots!Nice little chapter, though I wanted to murder Zephyr Breeze each time he spoke.
Also, I caught this:
I'm certain you meant the opposite.
7946005 Dialogue, not narrative.
7946087
I mean, shouldn't that line say "can"?
7946149
Saying it like that is actually pretty common.
7946149 Dialogue is how people actually talk, ese. It doesn't have to follow the narrative rules of grammar.
7946149 Technically, yes. Though, as stated, when actually speaking, both work... People make no sense sometimes. Also, why the hell downvote this?
7946235 7946245
I see. I honestly had no idea that also works.
7946325
You and I are wondering the same thing. Guess people just assumed I was trolling.
7946468 Actually, that was me. Your nitpick annoyed me. I'll own up to it.
Zephyr's face is even more punchable than ever, I see.
Wow, I learn about Equestria's cultural and society from this story much more than in the show.
7951809 Rainbow Dash won't give you any arguments on that.
7951809 I don't know what you're talking about! don't you know that Zephyr is like a total dream boat? How can you NOT find him amazing? o.o
"So you make the rain, then you store it in boxes with little yellow tags on every one?"
Nice reference.
8377619
Thanks! Glad someone caught it. All this time and only two people caught that one. >.>;;
8377619
I don't get it.